Medvedev assesses domestic tourism flow at 50 mln people in Russia in 2015

Jan 05 2016

Interfax

The domestic tourism flow can amount to around 50 million people in 2015, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting on the development of domestic tourism in Sochi.

The domestic tourism flow can amount to around 50 million people in 2015, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting on the development of domestic tourism in Sochi on Jan. 5.

He said that "this is almost a third of our country."

"Last year we have set a record. Over 20 million foreign guests visited us," Medvedev said.

"Thus, the potential for tourism development inside our country is huge, and we should use all the possibilities which are opening for us in the tourism industry," Medvedev said.

He recalled that the Coordinating Council for Domestic Tourism Development had been set up a month and a half ago. The federal target program for the development of domestic and inbound tourism also remains in effect, four billion rubles have been allocated for these measures last year, meanwhile, each ruble from the federal budget fell on an average three rubles of non-budgetary investments.

"The development of the domestic tourism industry is one of the indicators of the life quality in the country, and we should create all the conditions for developing this industry," Medvedev said.

It is necessary to develop a comfortable and affordable tourism, as well as an opportunity to verify the information on the routes in the Internet, he said.

"All these requests by tourists should be taken into account. First of all, the accessibility of passenger shipments should be ensured. This is probably the most difficult issue as what regards to civil aviation and railways. A certain reserve for support should function for this," Medvedev said.

He recalled that the air shipments became much more popular last year. The air shipments inside the country amounted to over 14%.

However, he said that the prices of fuel and leasing services, payments and the cost of bank credits continued growing. Therefore, there is a proposal to additionally support air carriers, which will operate on the most popular tourism routes, the prime minister said.